Ins and Outs of prepositions, The: A Guidebook for ESL Students [Paperback]

Jean Yates (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0764107577 | ISBN-13: 978-0764107573 | Publication Date: July 1999

Though written primarily for students of English as a Second Language, The Ins and Outs of Prepositions is also useful in remedial English courses on high school and college freshman levels. Unlike most languages - which usually have only a few prepositions to serve many different communication needs- English has dozen of them and almost none follows any clear, consistent set of rules. This book offers practical guidelines for correct usage, and provides hundreds of examples that incorporate all of the prepositions into familiar contexts. A total of 61 prepositions are examined.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Barron's Educational Series (July 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764107577
• ISBN-13: 978-0764107573
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 7.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #360,424 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Prepositions Clarified, January 31, 2006

By 

Steinbecks Shadow "More WordsPlz" (Southern California) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Ins and Outs of prepositions, The: A Guidebook for ESL Students (Paperback)

So why exactly do we say "in" the car but "on" the plane? For the ESL learner, as well as the curious and uncertain native English speaker, this books simplifies a great deal of that part of speech which trips many of us up. If you "HAVE TO KNOW" the rules as to why something is used a certain way, this book does that too. If all you want to know is which preposition is correct without the history of the English language tagging along, this book scores here also. It offers sixty some-odd prepositions, arranged alphabetically, with simplified models and words grouped together that suit that preposition. The book can easily be incorporated directly into a lesson plan or modeled for students self directed use. Moderately priced, I opted for a class set just to have on hand when we start fine tuning our paragraph work.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must for all English teachers, August 12, 2008

By 

Kathryn Esplin (USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ins and Outs of prepositions, The: A Guidebook for ESL Students (Paperback)

This book is very helpful for all those who teach English - those who teach native speakers as well as those who teach ESL.

As well, this book is also a must for anyone who is still confused by our massive use of non-standard uses of prepositions, such as "about the house", "I will go see her about that."

As a teacher of English to non-native speakers, my students were always telling me that they found prepositions confusing - when to use "to,at,on."

This book clears up all this and more.

A must.

9 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Prepositions fully explained but...., March 22, 2007

By 

S. Cesare "CS" (Milan Italy) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ins and Outs of prepositions, The: A Guidebook for ESL Students (Paperback)

Prepositions are a boring topic.
The idea is to look at them in a systematic way.
Flat treatment of preposition meaning and usage (certain meaning are really rare).
Excellent the idea to indicate typical noun and verbs used with specific preposition patterns; but the verbs indicated are really a minimum list.

Missing a well chosen set of examples for every pattern (just a sentence for every pattern)
Excellent review of idiomatic expressions using the indicated prepositions

Ridicolous phrasal verb list.